


Vinegar Pistol

by Dispatches (orphan_account)



Category: Scrubs, Torchwood
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-11
Updated: 2010-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:06:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Dispatches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JD can feel his eyes widening. It's possible that he's suffered a psychotic break and is hallucinating this entire episode, but for the time being he's going to run with it, because if this is really real then he's about to become an alien-hunter's temporary sidekick, and life doesn't hand you that kind of opportunity every day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vinegar Pistol

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [](http://sarkastic.livejournal.com/profile)[**sarkastic**](http://sarkastic.livejournal.com/)'s [Captain Jack Harkness Sexes Everyone In Every Fandom Ever](http://sarkastic.livejournal.com/283926.html) challenge. I don't name the city in which JD lives and works because the Scrubs writers are deliberately vague about where the show is located. There are no explicit indicators of this in the story, but as far as I'm concerned this takes place pre-"Everything Changes".

Ah, the men's room in Stanwick's Bar: urinals, stalls, mirrors, a broken condom machine and a selection of dirty limericks on the walls. JD's pissed in the urinals and puked in the stalls more times than he cares to count, and then there was that one time when his shirt caught fire and by a strange coincidence the sinks happened to be broken. (He's pretty sure the Janitor had something to do with that.)

So this time he checks they're working before he heads for a stall, and that's why he's not the one whose throat gets slashed by the claw of a creature that looks a lot like ET would look if he'd grown up and put on a few hundred pounds.

As he scrambles backwards, unable to look away from the _thing_ that's ripping a hole in the wall and loping through it into the alley behind the bar, JD laughs a high-pitched laugh that doesn't sound like him and wonders if this is really it and he's finally crossed the line between "adorably eccentric" and "don't let the crazy man touch you, honey".

But there's a man bleeding to death on the floor and JD is a doctor, so he takes a gulp of air and gets to it, kneeling down beside the guy and pressing hard on the wound. From the looks of the splashes on the floor and on the guy's chest, JD thinks he's lost about a pint of blood, which is nasty but needn't be fatal if he can just keep the wound closed and get the guy to Sacred Heart in time to get his throat stitched up.

Throat. Stitched up. How the hell do you explain that to the admitting -- just tell them he got in a knife fight -- no, then they'd have to call the police -- oh crap, what if he doesn't have insurance? -- it's an emergency, they'll treat him anyway -- wait, has he stopped bleeding already? That doesn't make any --

There's a gasp and the man's eyes open, startlingly blue even under the buzzing flourescent lights that wash out everybody's colouring. "Could you take your hands off my throat?" he says, and his voice isn't rough or bubbly like you'd expect a guy's voice to be when he's just had his throat sliced open by a -- _thing_.

JD lets his fingers shift slightly around the wound, and that's how he realises that the wound just plain isn't there any more. He shrinks back, taking his hands off the man's throat and staring as he sits up, looks down at his chest with distaste, then stands gracefully and walks over to the sinks.

"I just got this shirt," says the man. "Pink's of Jermyn Street. Had to go to London. There's nowhere in Cardiff that sells shirts this nice." He runs water over his hands and splashes his throat, looking at JD's reflection in the mirror. "Are you all right?"

"I feel sick," says JD, and promptly vomits all over the bloodstain on the floor.

Mr Incredible Healing Throat looks on with equanimity, and when JD's stomach is completely empty, he nods sagely and says "Better out than in. So now are you all right?"

"What just happened?" says JD. "That was, without exception, the weirdest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. And I'm a doctor and I work in a hospital staffed entirely by crazy people, so I see incredibly weird things on an almost-daily basis, I mean, you should see our collection of ass slides, with the pens and the hammers and the, and, and, and -- " The man's taking his shirt off and balling it up; the blood hasn't soaked through to his undershirt. " -- this janitor we've got, he likes to hunt squirrels and stuff them and -- "

The man holds up a hand and JD subsides. "Calm down," says the man. "You're babbling."

"Yeah, I know. I do that a lot." JD stands up, swaying on his feet, and sticks, first his hands, then his head, under a cold tap. "What the hell just happened?" he says as the water soaks his hair and washes the puke off his face.

"What do you think you saw?"

"I -- " JD lifts his head, slicks his hair back. Is there any way he can say _I came in to take a leak and saw ET's big brother slashing your throat open with his claws, which, incidentally, doesn't seem to have done any lasting damage_ without sounding like a crazy person? "I came in to take a leak and saw ET's big brother slashing your throat open with its claws, which, incidentally, doesn't seem to have done any lasting damage. Are you Wolverine? I mean, in your secret identity. Do you have an adamantium skeleton as well as a kickass healing factor? Because if you do I think you owe it to medical science to turn yourself in for research."

The man laughs, and JD wasn't joking, except in that way that he's almost always joking even when he's serious, but the man's eyes are kind and his laugh sounds nice, not like he thinks JD is an idiot. "Oh, I don't think medical science is ready for me. Tell me, what's your name?"

"John Dorian. Dr John Dorian. Uh. My friends call me JD," says JD, feeling that he ought to be saying something else but not having the first clue as to what that should be.

The man stuffs the shirt into an almost-full trashcan and holds out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness. Pleased to meet you, JD. Can we talk about this over a drink?"

Somehow JD can't object to that, maybe because alcohol seems like a great idea after seeing a Creature From The Black Lagoon bust through a wall, or maybe because this guy was incredibly good-looking when his throat was all cut up, and with the bloodstains washed off he's a _fox_. So he shakes Captain Harkness's hand and says "Yeah, that'd be good," and the Captain's handshake is firm and reassuring.

"Is that a Bluetooth thing you got in your ear?" says JD as he leads the way back into the bar. "It's cool. James Bond-y. I wish my pager was that cool."

"It's not actually Bluetooth, but the principle is the same," says Jack (the Captain, Captain Jack -- what kind of Captain is he, anyway?). "Short-range wireless transceiver with -- "

He stops dead, three steps away from the men's room door. "Something up?" says JD.

Jack clutches his arm. "Listen," he says in a low voice, "I'm going to ask you a question that might seem ridiculous. Please just answer it and don't make a big noise or any attention-getting gestures. Can you do that for me, JD?"

"S-sure. What is it?"

"What city are we in? What country?"

_That's two questions,_ JD thinks but doesn't say. Out loud, he answers Jack as calmly as the circumstances permit, and he's not surprised when Jack curses in reply. "Why?" he says, "where should you be?"

"That doesn't matter," says Jack, striding past JD towards the exit. "What matters is, there's an escaped criminal from Raxacoricofallapatorious on the loose in a city with no resources to fight him. Shit! I'm going to have to improvise. I just hope to God the jump from Cardiff burned out the teleporter..."

He's talking to himself, but JD follows him anyway. "Wait, what? Teleporter? Raxa-what? Slow down, Jack!" He grabs Jack's arm, but the look on Jack's face makes him wish he hadn't. "Uh, can -- can I call you Jack, do you mind? Or would you rather I called you Captain?"

Jack sighs. "You can call me anything you want if you can tell me where to get some vinegar and a water pistol. Or a hose, but a water pistol would be better."

"If I tell you that, will you tell me what's going on?"

"_When_ you tell me that, I'm going to make sure the thing that slashed my throat open won't get to slash the throats of anyone who doesn't have a -- what did you call it? -- a 'kickass healing factor'."

JD can feel his eyes widening. It's possible that he's suffered a psychotic break and is hallucinating this entire episode, but for the time being he's going to run with it, because if this is really real then he's about to become an alien-hunter's temporary sidekick, and life doesn't hand you that kind of opportunity every day. "I've got a giant jar of pickles and a water pistol at my place," he says, mentally clothing himself in SWAT gear and infrared goggles.

"Which is where?"

"My scooter's parked out front. I'll take you there."

Jack nods once, and JD feels a shiver run up and down his spine. He turns to go a little too quickly, wondering if his sudden desire to run his hands through Jack's hair has anything to do with his sudden desire to salute him and call him "sir". He files that thought away for future reference as he puts his helmet on and starts Sasha up, and Jack sits behind him and grabs onto his waist.

He's never ridden as fast as he rides tonight, Sasha's engine purring to begin with, then protesting, finally making little "tired, giving up now" sounds a few yards from the apartment block. He turns her off as if that was where he'd meant to stop all along and sprints up to the door of the building; then there's an agonising moment when he can't find his keys, and when he does find them he holds them up to show them to Jack, only to realise that Jack is still sitting on the back of Sasha's seat.

In answer to the question JD doesn't dare ask, Jack calls out "Bring the stuff down. We've got to hurry."

He siphons the vinegar from the pickle jar into an empty beer bottle, and while he's covering the neck with aluminum foil he catches a glimpse of himself reflected in the glass of the bottle. He looks wild-eyed and pale, his hair sticking out at odd angles as if he'd only just got up. He doesn't look like an alien-hunter: he looks like a homeless person. He grips the bottle by the neck and walks over to the window, standing just beyond the edge and peering out so that he can see without being seen.

Jack is on the street below him, sitting astride Sasha, staring at his wristwatch.

JD takes a breath, grabs the water-pistol from the hall closet, and goes back down.

"He isn't moving," says Jack as soon as JD comes into earshot. "I think he's gone into hiding. He's about half a mile west of here."

"How do you -- "

"I stuck a tracer in him before he -- " Jack mimes slitting his throat.

JD nods. He can taste bile in his mouth. He swallows it before saying, "So, what next?"

Jack grins. "Well," he says, patting Sasha's side, "your scooter needs a rest. And maybe a tune-up. Our quarry isn't going anywhere -- he's probably injured himself. So we can walk." He swings his leg over Sasha's side to face JD properly and his smile fades. "That is, if you still want to come. It'd be handy to have a local to show me around, but you don't have to."

JD's heart is pounding, his palms are sweaty, and he hasn't really shaken off the nausea that took hold when he first saw the alien slash Jack's throat. He is more afraid than he has ever been in his life, and he is _loving_ it. "Are you _kidding_?" he squeaks, then he coughs to make his voice sound deeper. "Just -- tell me what to do, man! I swear, whatever you want -- "

Jack smiles, and JD has the feeling he's signed a contract a dozen times longer than he thought it was. "Okay, then. This way," says Jack, keeping one eye on his wristwatch.

Only, it becomes clear pretty soon that it isn't just a wristwatch: it's a strap-on computer thingy, like something out of a comic book. Jack's using it to track the alien: it doesn't provide a map, only a direction and a distance, so he needs JD to give him hints about which streets to go down and where there are shortcuts that don't look like shortcuts, and JD actually feels _useful_, which surprises him.

They haven't been walking long when Jack stops dead at the mouth of an alley and holds a hand in front of JD. He looks at his wrist-computer and nods to himself. "Fill the water-pistol with the vinegar," he says in a low voice, and JD has to fumble for a second, because he only has two hands, but he manages it anyway, though some of the vinegar splashes on his shoes. He hands the filled water-pistol to Jack, who takes it with a nod and says "Stand well back. This might get messy. If it looks like I'm in trouble, or if the alien comes at you, throw the rest of the vinegar at it." He holds the water-pistol in front of him with its barrel tilted upwards a little and flattens himself against the wall, peering around the corner, then darts into the alley. JD follows him, a few steps behind, trying to imitate Jack's cool, and when he sees the great shadowy lump in the corner he doesn't throw up even a little bit, and he's kind of proud of that.

The lump rises, making itself even bigger, and even in the shadows of the alley JD can see that it's the alien that slit Jack's throat. It's moving oddly, sort of lopsided. _Jack was right,_ JD thinks, _it's injured. Maybe we should -- _

Before he can finish the thought, Jack points the water-pistol at the creature. "Don't move," he says, "or I'll liquefy you."

The creature halts for a moment, its head cocked to one side, then it lunges forward suddenly -- but not suddenly enough. Jack's finger's on the trigger, and a clear stream of vinegar shoots from the pistol to the creature, making its skin erupt into sizzling boils. The creature howls in pain, and Jack scrambles backwards, calling out "JD, the vinegar. Throw the vinegar at it!"

The creature's obvious pain stymies JD, but only briefly: it raises its claws in what looks a lot like a battle stance, and he panics and tosses the bottle at its head with all the force he can muster. The creature's howls diminish into whimpers, and then it explodes right in front of JD's eyes.

"Holy," he says.

"Jesus," he says.

"Fuck," he says.

His heart is pounding like a jackhammer and there are bits of dissolved alien on his chest and shoes. Jack's wiping his face, shaking his hands to get the stinky goo off of them.

"Uh," says JD, "what the fuck just happened?"

"The acetic acid in the vinegar reacted with the alien's calcium body structure," says Jack, "causing an explosive reaction."

"It's dead?"

"He's dead." Jack looks at JD, his gaze steady. "He was wanted on his home planet on multiple counts of murder."

"Oh," says JD. It was a "he", then, this creature. Strange: Jack said "he" before, but it didn't quite register. "So, um, we just, um -- "

Jack sighs, walks over to JD, and puts his hands on JD's shoulders. "JD. That creature was a Slitheen, a member of a criminal family. One of his relations came damned close to destroying the entire Earth just to get herself back to her home planet. And this one was no different."

JD stares into Jack's eyes. In the orange glow of the streetlights he can't see what colour they are, but he can see Jack's certainty, and that reassures him. "So, you're saying we, um -- he would have hurt people if we hadn't..." He lets his voice peter out; he's forgotten whatever it was he was going to say. Jack's eyes are mesmerising. JD's not nauseous any more, but his heart is still pounding.

Jack's hands squeeze gently. "And if he'd got back, and been punished, the government of his home planet would have done what we just did. Only," (his eyes grow dark, and JD shivers) "they would have made it last longer."

"Oh," says JD. He swallows hard. What he is about to do is kind of crazy, but then everything that's happened since he opened the men's room door has been crazy, no "kind of" about it, and if this is all a daydream, he'd like to get as much as he can out of it before somebody punches him back to reality. So he licks his lips, puts his hands on Jack's waist, leans forward and kisses him.

He means it to be a soft kiss, a thank-you kiss, a can-we-do-something kiss, and that's how it starts, but a microsecond later Jack's hands are on the back of his head and they're pressed together, devouring each other. It leaves him breathless and he has to break away, panting, resting his forehead on Jack's with his eyes closed.

"Adrenaline," Jack mutters. "High stress situation, producing -- hn -- arousal symptoms."

"I know that," says JD, a little snippy, but he's damned if he's going to let Jack harsh his buzz. "I'm a doctor."

"I'm offering you a way out," says Jack, and JD's eyes fly open and he can see that Jack is serious, and also that he's just as turned on as JD, but possibly better able to deal with it in a rational manner.

But _screw_ rationality. "I don't want a way out," he says, and he pushes his hips up against Jack's so that Jack can feel his hard-on -- and, hey, Jack's hard too, isn't that nice? And the little gasp he lets out when JD licks his neck is kind of gratifying.

"Okay," says Jack, and suddenly he's turning JD around and pushing him up against the wall, kissing him hard. JD's knees go weak; he grabs the brickwork to steady himself and is doubly thankful for that when he feels Jack's hand undoing his fly with a speed and skill that makes him wonder, briefly, how many times Jack's done this, until Jack reaches inside his fly, inside his boxers, and he decides that he doesn't care about anything but the hand on his cock and the mouth on his mouth.

The mouth wanders, nibbling slowly across his cheek towards his throat, and this is the part where he'd usually start babbling, but he has no words, no words at all: Jack's hands are _magic_, they're doing things he didn't think were possible, slowing down and speeding up and finding pleasure spots he's never found himself in fifteen years of solo masturbation. It takes all his self-control not to crack his skull against the wall: he wants to thrash around, he wants to scream, but he can't, not here, not now --

\-- and then he comes so hard he can see stars.

For a long moment he's so wiped he can't even think. He comes to gradually, noticing little things first: a painful spot on his lower lip that tastes of blood when he tongues it, the rough texture of a broken brick under his left hand, Jack's hand gently tucking him back into his pants and redoing his fly.

He opens his eyes (when did he close them?) and whistles. "Man," he says to Jack, who is wiping his other hand clean with a handkerchief, "you are _good_."

Jack smiles, and his eyes glitter. "That was just the appetizer," he says. "For the main course, we're going to need a bed."

"There's a main course?" says JD stupidly. He's terribly glad of the wall behind his back; if it wasn't there he'd be flat on the ground by now. "I, I mean, main course! Great! Awesome!"

"You still hungry?"

"Starved."

"Good. I'd say 'your place or mine?', but my place is on the other side of the Atlantic, so..."

JD peels himself off the wall and takes Jack's hand. "Dinner will be served shortly," he says, and Jack follows him, laughing.

~*~

Between the sex (mindblowing) and the beer (flat and stale -- and who puts half-full cans back in the fridge, anyway? He's going to have to talk to Turk about that, unless it was him, in which case he maybe should keep his mouth shut), he's pretty drowsy by 3am, lying boneless on the bed, feeling like he's never been this relaxed, like he's never going to enjoy sex that much ever again (not that that's going to put him off). Jack isn't lying beside him, and as he's woozily contemplating whether to call him back to bed so they can snuggle, Jack's voice drifts in from the living room.

"...dealt with it... Oh, the usual: acetic acid bath... Yeah, very dead. You can start in on the final report... Hm? No, I recruited a local... No, no, I got it covered. Slipped him some Retcon in a beer. He won't remember a thing... I don't know, depends on the flight times. I'll let you know when I'm back in the UK. Sorry to have got you up for nothing... I'll see you in the Hub."

JD stirs. Jack comes back into the room and sits down beside him on the bed. "I've got to go," he says, stroking JD's hair. "I'm sorry."

JD lifts his head, then lets it fall back to his pillow. It feels like lead and he can barely keep his eyes open. "Wha'd you say 'bout me? Not r'mber?"

"That's why I'm sorry," says Jack. "You won't remember any of this. At best, you might have a vague recollection of meeting some guy with dark hair. You certainly won't remember killing that alien, and it's unlikely you'll remember the incredible sex, which is the part I'd be really pissed off about, if I were you."

"AM pissed... off..." JD tries to swat Jack, but his hand flops down onto the pillow as his eyes finally fall closed.

"That's the sedative working. I'm sorry..."

The last thing JD is conscious of is Jack's hand gently stroking his face.

~*~

When he wakes up, his head is a little fuzzy. He tries to remember what he did the night before, how much he drank, whether he did anything stupid and if so whether anyone saw him, but all he can dredge up is going to Stanwick's, having a few beers, throwing up, going home, and sleeping like the dead.

He stumbles into the kitchen, yawning fit to crack his jaw, and wonders why the room smells of vinegar.

[end]


End file.
